Category: From the Electoral College

It has been an honor to serve as President of the Electoral College for the past four years. I was very young in my term on the College when I was asked to serve as President, and I would like to share that story. I had driven all morning in pouring rain and difficult traffic from Austin to Dallas so that I could serve as Priest in a gnostic mass wedding for two dear friends at
Bubastis. I arrived frazzled and late. Of course, I had to slide into ritual mode and begin the wedding with very little on site preparation. The wedding went well, and I got to see my dear friends marry in front of the assembled brethren. When the ritual was completed, my predecessor spoke to me privately and offered me the chair of President. At the time I thought
that he was joking. I was still new to the College and had just been getting my feet underneath myself as an Elector. Serving as President was a much larger job than I could see myself in at the time. I jokingly told him to get me a job description and walked off (that’s not a bad idea when offered any job in OTO!)

After the next regular meeting of the College, the President approached me again with a job description. I was astonished that he took me seriously, and I quickly and soberly realized that his offer was legitimate. I told him to give me a bit of time to consider it, and I spent several weeks meditating on what it would mean to serve as President. In many ways, the job of President is a life term on the College. Even after the President’s 11 year term is completed
on the College, he or she remains on the discussion list to offer institutional memory “from the shades” to the College. It is also a very visible executive position within the most visible governing body of Grand Lodge.

My experiences serving as President were humbling. I endeavored to direct debate within the College fairly and to make hard decisions for what the College and myself believe was the healthiest direction for the Order’s future. The lesson that “Government is Service, and nothing else” was repeatedly driven home. There is no place for ego in the office of the
President of the College. Frankly, my fellow Electors would mirror that directly to me when my ego began to get in the way, and for that I am humbly and eternally grateful. My years as President of the College have been profoundly transformative, and I am eternally appreciative
for the difficult challenges that the office provided me with as I was able to develop my character by leaps and bounds.

Serving as President of the College is in many ways acting as the tip of a spear. The College works as a unified body, and the President has to give the good and the bad news to people including appointing body masters in emergency situations and suspending or removing charters of local bodies. That has an emotional cost. That cost takes the form of weeks of nightly phone calls trying to put out metaphorical fires at local bodies across the country. After four years, I am pleased to set down those particular working tools.

In the end, I am very happy to pass on the chair to my very capable successor who is the first woman to serve as President in the United States! Notably, UK Grand Lodge also appointed a woman to serve as President of their Electoral College. I am very pleased at the increase of strong women in leadership positions in the Order, and I fully expect Hattie to do an even
better job at directing the Work of the College than I did. No pressure, Hattie! I will always be there to dispense support and encouragement “from the shades,” and the College will have to put up with me until my full term expires in the Fall of 2021. As always, I am profoundly grateful and humbled by this opportunity to serve our Holy Order.

Love is the law, love under Will

In the Bonds of the Order,
Ministerio Caritas aka David Hill
President Emeritus
Electoral College, USGL

The Electoral College of the United States Grand Lodge would like to invite anybody who has attended any event at an O.T.O. Lodge, Oasis, or Camp in the past year to share any feedback regarding their experiences via a short web survey. The responses to this survey are anonymous and will not be made public, nor will they be shared directly with the master of the body. Rather the responses will be collated and the over-all themes relayed to the master.

This is a public survey, so feel free to share with anybody that you think would be interested in filling it out.

You are always welcome to contact the E.C. directly for any reason within our purview by emailing the secretary at electoral_college@oto-usa.org or by emailing any elector individually, our emails are on the contact page: http://ec.oto-usa.org/electors.html. The purpose of this survey, however, is to open a more casual line of communication to the E.C. so that we can have a better understanding of the overall feeling of how things are going at the body and what sorts of things that general attendees like or dislike. To this end, please fill out this survey even if you think everything is going great at the body (in fact especially so!)

The deadline for filling out this survey will midnight on February 1st, at that time it will go offline.

At the recent Fall 2017 meeting of the Electoral College, a resolution was passed that provides for limits on the length of time any given person can hold the position of master of a local body.

The base tenure limit is 4 years, starting on the date of the E.C. meeting at which the master was appointed or confirmed.

By the submission deadline for the fourth anniversary of that E.C. meeting, that master must have either turned in an application for change of mastership or a tenure limit extension application. For example, a master appointed at the Fall 2016 meeting must turn in an application by the submission deadline for the Fall 2020 meeting.

Tenure limit extensions, when approved, will add one additional year to the tenure. These will be readily approved for most reasons.

All current masters will receive their tenure expiration date information soon. Masters who were appointed or confirmed three or more years prior to the next Winter meeting on 1/6/2018 will have the following Winter meeting in January 2019 as their tenure limit date.

The goal of this policy is to encourage regular turnover of mastership, which can be indicative of, and conducive to, good body health. If masters are given an expectation of a tenure limit, our hope is that they will be more likely to turn over the mastership instead of holding onto it even if they are feeling burnt out. It also helps prevent a body from becoming too reliant on the mastership of any individual, promoting delegation of responsibility to offices that can persist beyond the tenure of any master.

However, turning over of mastership just for the sake of doing so is not always beneficial to the body, especially in developing or low population areas. If there are reasons that the mastership can not be passed on, it is good for the E.C. to be aware of them.

It should also be noted that this is not an establishment of a term for body masters, thus the use of “tenure limit” instead of “term.” A master does not need to fulfil 4 years; rather that is the maximum amount of time that they can be in the role without providing an explanation of why they cannot hand it off to another person. Masters who wish to allow someone else into the office sooner are more than welcome to do so.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the E.C. Tenure Limit Secretary at Mike.Estell at oto-usa.org

The Electoral College possesses one most singular power. Every eleven years, or in the case of a vacancy occurring, they choose two persons from the Ninth Degree, who are charged with the duty of Revolution. It is the business of these persons constantly to criticise and oppose the acts of the Supreme and Most Holy King, whether or no they personally approve of them. Should he exhibit weakness, bodily, mental, or moral, they are empowered to appeal to the O.H.O. to depose him; but they, alone of all the members of the Order, are not eligible to the Succession.

– Liber 194, An Intimation with Reference to the Constitution of the Order

The Electoral College has appointed a new Revolutionary at the Fall meeting held on Oct 21, 2017 e.v.

We would like to thank Muops for volunteering for this position.

We would also like to thank EAOA//77 for fulfilling 11 years of service as of July 2017, e.v.

We still have a remaining vacancy for another revolutionary. Members in good standing of the Sovereign Sanctuary of the IX° in the United States (who are not serving as an officer or voting member of any Governing or Administrative Body under the jurisdiction of U.S. Grand Lodge) wishing to volunteer to stand for election to the office of Revolutionary by the Electoral College are encouraged to write the President of the E.C. to volunteer.

The Supreme Grand Council of United States Grand Lodge made the following statement on 8/20/2017:

It is no secret that Aleister Crowley’s writings include a number of statements that are demeaning to women and to specific racial or ethnic groups. We make no attempt here to justify or explain away those statements. They are what they are, and they are now part of our history as an organization. However, at this time, we find that ideas of the inherent superiority of one sex over the other, or of the inherent superiority or inferiority of specific “races” or ethnicities of humanity, relative to each other, are not supported by the best science, and are contrary to our stated goals of promulgating the Law of Thelema and realizing the age-old vision of the Universal Brotherhood of Man, which includes all Humankind. Therefore, the U.S. Grand Lodge of Ordo Templi Orientis hereby formally and unequivocally rejects all such ideas. O.T.O. draws strength from diversity; we welcome the participation and friendship of Thelemites of all sexes, genders, “races,” and ethnic groups, and from all cultures; and we are committed to opposing their unfair treatment, within and without the Order. We further remain committed to opposing ideas and doctrines–whether religious, political, philosophical, or pseudo-scientific–that tend toward the enslavement of the human spirit, which indwells “every man, every woman, and every intermediately-sexed individual.”